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Lovemore Meya Herald Correspondent
Chitungwiza Municipality recorded a 20 percentage increase in revenue collections in the September to October period after it implored indebted residents to negotiate for viable payment plans, an official has said.

The local authority’s finance director, Mrs Evangelista Machona, told the municipality’s full council meeting recently that collections in the August to September period were mainly affected by the attachment of property by companies that were owed money by the authority.

“The potential billable income for the period under review (August to September) was $1 695 993 and council managed to collect $474 066,” she said.

“This represents 28 percent collection rate on billable income (the amount that is billed on residents). Revenue collection decreased by 22 percent as compared to the previous month due to disturbances that took place.” But as more residents continue to engage council to settle their debts, revenues have naturally increased.

“We also managed to collect $904 000 (September 20 to October 18), which represents 48 percent collection rate on billable income,” said Mrs Machona. “The increase of revenue was merely due to the payment plans that we were calling for our residents to come and make.”

Mrs Machona urged Chitungwiza council to look for alternatives to increase revenue inflows.

“Although we can say it is an insignificant figure, but we did not cover exactly what we really expected because only 4 000 ratepayers came for payment plans,” she said. “We have to think of other incentives to manage our revenues.

“We are now arranging for a debt pack so that we can separate our bills to enable us to have ratepayers sent for debt collection, but we are still waiting the tender process. For our council properties, we have already started engaging our internal debt collectors.”